Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 32

Reports between Guest and Host at the Investiture of the Palace Lady (宮主) — Report Submitted to the Banquet Companion by the Reader of the Patent (讀冊)宮主封冊客主狀 讀冊行上筵伴狀

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 36 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 32 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

布冊中闈。叨榮下介。趨風伊邇。佇瞻龜鈕之光。挹德滋深。先致鯉書之問。傾翹所切。覼縷奚窮。

In the unfolding of the patent within the palace I have presumptuously gained the glory of the lower place of Deputy Envoy. The day of running like the wind is near, and I wait to look up and behold the splendor of the tortoise-knobbed seal. My longing for Your virtue grows deeper still, and so I first ask after You by a letter in a carp's belly. My looking up to You is earnest; how should I ever be done with setting it all out one by one?